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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Edits and Second Contract

Editor Ami sent over the first round of edits for Upon Eagle's Light. Being my first edits ever, I stared at them for awhile, not knowing exactly how to go about inserting my own strikethroughs and such. Of course after I went through the trouble of finding the strikethrough function on the dropdown toolbar, it turns out I didn't need it as Ami had the document already set up so when I deleted something, it didn't delete, but struckthrough automatically. Duh. It also tracked the changes I made, not only in blue, but with a notation tracker that marked what time and day I changed it. I noticed some of her entries were made at 3:24 am. Now that's dedication. Or insomina.

I also stumbled on how to read her comments with the dropdown menu from the View toolbar. I can't even tell you what it feels like when your editor writes that she is crying at a particular part and that is a mark of a good writer. Yay, I made her cry.

Anyway, I had an entire month to go through the edits, though Ami suggested I take only a week so it could get released on schedule. It only took me two days, and yes I went over every word, every symbol, every sentence structure. Ami had already caught almost everything and she had some great suggestions. All in all, this was an enjoyable experience to see what she thought about it.

And while we were in the middle of that, I sent over a short story I had written. The Wild Rose Press is having a contest you can read about here.The gist is it has to be a time/travel romance where the heroine travels back in time going through this particular garden gate in Bury, England. Well, I thought about it and came up with an idea about a girl who goes back to the Civil War, although unlike many characters who travel back in time, I wanted her to be someone who hadn't studied enough history to know much about it. You know like how the New Englander in King Arthur's Court knew the date of an eclipse. Had many people would really know the date of a eclipse?

Anyway, the story came at me fast, just flowed. I couldn't get it down fast enough. I even got cramps in my hand, no lie. I wrote it in 3 days in between work and then realized that the heroine was transported from a civil war museum. I'd totally forgotten that she had to go through a gate in England for the contest. And it worked so well the way I had it, I wasn't going to rewrite that part. So I bagged the contest and sent it in to Ami. She loved it and sent me the contract.

So now I have two books coming out. This one will be published as a short Miniature Rose. I'm very excited, esp. because now that I have more than one, I feel like maybe it wasn't just some quirk of luck, but that I really am a good writer. Now, I'm off to work on the eaglekin's sequel, which is not flowing nearly as fast as the time travel.

Here's a real short excerpt from The Sweetheart Tree:

“Oh, sugar,” a solider-reenactor-a tall, slender one cooed at her. “Did you think you’d be safer dressin like a lad? Is that why you cut your hair?”

“Did a poor job of it, if you ask me,” another said. “There’s no mistakin she’s a woman. You need something much baggier, miss, if you don’t mind me pointing out.” All eyes seemed to be taking in her jeans and T-shirt, which seemed to gleam in the darkness.

“I never saw attire like that,” the tall one said. “Where you from?”

“Montana,” she snarled it.

“Mont Anna? Is that in Prince Edward County?”

Oh, please. She had to hand it to these guys. They were sure staying in character, pretending they never heard of Montana as it wasn’t even a territory before the Civil War. They hadn’t missed a beat. None of them. What? Were they required to attend reenactment school?

She’d wasted enough time with them. “Please let go of me.”

The young lieutenant frowned down at her. “Ma’am, I can’t let a woman wander around out here alone. It’s not safe. Sheridan’s army is burning everything. Don’t you know what could happen to you?”

“Gee, let me think. You mean like being dragged into the bushes by several filthy men? Something like that?”

------------- Clover Autrey -------------

I'm a writer, mom, grandma, wife, admin during the day, and mild-mannered introvert who takes all my inner daringness out on my characters. They get to say and do the things I never would in pubic. Although those closest to me are no longer shocked at the randomness that sometimes slips out.